Most of this chapter deals
with attempts to extend to all of New York the type of “scientific
mapping” pioneered
by the U.S. Coast Survey and described in Chapter 10. The whole
process was intensely political, and involved much intrigue
in and around the State Legislature. These efforts made little
progress until after the Civil War, and New York was not completely
triangulated and mapped at a large scale until well into the
twentieth century. While these efforts were going on, scientific-minded
cartographers also produced quantities of specialized
thematic maps of New York, including geological maps, soil
maps, and demographic maps.

Early Attempts to Extend Triangular Survey

The desirability of obtaining
improved mapping of New York had long been recognized by many
of New York’s political
leaders, and by much of its cultural elite. In 1827, Dewitt
Clinton in his Annual Message to the legislature remarked: “An
authentic and official map of the state is a desideratum which
ought to be supplied, and this is suggested without any disparagement
of the laudable attempts which have been made by individuals
for that purpose.”[1] It would be interesting
to know exactly what kind of map Clinton had in mind. By this
time, there was a widespread consensus among those concerned
with map-making that surveys based on triangulation were the
best way to create accurate maps, but I have been unable to
locate any discussion in the late 1820s about conducting such
a survey of New York. The only upshot of Clinton's proposal
seems to have been the law passed in October of that year,
which authorized the creation of David Burr’s map and
atlas of the state.[2]

Only a few years later, in1830,
the first state survey based on triangulation was authorized—Simeon
Borden’s
survey of Massachusetts.[3] This survey was
highly regarded in the first part of the nineteenth century,
and it had considerable influence on the course of events in
New York. The Massachusetts triangulation was reportedly carried
out quite well, and it led to the production of a map of the
state in 1844.[4] But few detailed maps based
on this triangulation were made. The idea behind the Borden
survey was that individual counties and private surveyors would
use the results of the triangulation to construct more detailed
local maps. Prior to 1850, only a few maps of individual Massachusetts
counties took advantage of this triangulation. Only in the
1850s, did Henry Francis Walling, who was also associated with
the French-Smith project in New York, use Borden’s triangulation
to create maps of many Massachusetts counties, and an updated
state map.[5] As we will see, this idea of
relying on private mapmakers to produce county maps using a
state sponsored triangulation as a geodetic framework, was
influential in New York until about 1890.

In the 1850s, serious efforts
were finally made to undertake a triangulation-based survey
of the State of New York. By this time, Long Island and much
of southern New York had been triangulated by the U.S. Coast
Survey, and a few maps based on Coast Survey data had been
published. In 1851, a full-fledged “Proposal
for a Trigonometrical Survey of New-York” was presented
to the American Association for the Advancement of Science
by Edward B. Hunt of the Army Engineer Corps.[6]. This
proposal was modeled on the mapping of the U.S. Coast Survey
(for which Hunt had worked), as is clearly revealed by his
description:

The idea of which I have
conceived of what a survey of New-York should be, is about
the following: Let a base be measured in Western New-York,
and made the starting line for a system of primary, secondary
and tertiary triangulation, extending towards Pennsylvania
and New-England. A connection will be obtained in the Hudson
valley with the Coast Survey triangulation, giving the desired
verification. Plane tabling should extend, first, over the
ground around the cities and large villages, so as soon to
furnish good maps of the principle cities and villages, and
their vicinities, throughout the State, excepting such as
are already covered by the Coast Survey operations. The work
should then be extended so as to obtain the elements for
complete county maps, to be published in the general order
of the population of counties, or per square mile….
In point of accuracy and style, the work should not fall
essentially below that of the Coast Survey,… [7]

The arguments that Hunt used
to justify this survey are less than overwhelming. He began
by asserting that: “The importance
of obtaining accurate delineations of the leading geographical
features of this country is so obvious, and so generally conceded,
that it would be superfluous here to elaborate arguments in
its proof.”[8] A few paragraphs later,
he gave one concrete example of the usefulness of good maps: “How
much accurate maps are needed, every one must have felt who
has traveled through the common roads of the country….
Millions of miles are needlessly traveled, for the want of
proper maps.” [9] This may be true,
but it is not self-evident that an elaborate survey based on
triangulation and plane tabling was necessary to produce satisfactory
road maps. Hunt’s most heartfelt justification was based
on national prestige and patriotism: “Geodesy, topography,
hydrography are indispensable handmaids to any geography worthy
of a civilized nation.”[10] And again: “It
is certain that if we are among those nations alive to the
power and benefits of the sciences characterizing civilized
society, the States of this Union must in turn be surveyed
with that nice accuracy which geodesy now demands and furnishes.”[11]

Hunt’s proposal was backed
by the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
which appointed a seven-person committee—which included
Hunt, and was chaired by none other than Alexander D. Bache
(head of the Coast Survey)—to
draw up a memorial to submit to the State Legislature.[12]
In 1852, the Committee’s proposal was duly submitted
to the legislature by Governor Washington Hunt (conveniently
E.B. Hunt’s
elder brother).[13] The legislature took
no action, and the proposal was resubmitted in 1853 by Governor
Hunt’s
successor, Governor Seymour—again without success. The
legislature balked at the expense of the proposal, and some
legislators may have been hoping that the federal government
would eventually pay to survey the state. This failure to take
action provided the opening for Robert Pearsall Smith’s
project, which was described in the previous chapter. The Smith
project was privately funded, but the resulting maps seemed
inadequate to Hunt and those who thought like him. There is
an interesting parallel between Governor Clinton’s 1827
proposal for an accurate map of the state, which was quickly
followed by the production of the Burr map and atlas, and the
Hunt proposal, which preceded the French-Smith project.

In 1857, a similar proposal
was put forward by a committee of the American Geographical
and Statistical Society (later American Geographical Society).
This report, which was drafted by a committee chaired by Egbert
L. Viele (of whom more later), was also brief and mostly restricted
to generalities.[14] It pointed particularly
to the need for accurate maps to assess the natural resources
of the state. Singling out the New York State Natural History
Survey begun in the 1836, it maintained: “While these
examinations and explorations have in many instances exhibited
extraordinary results, they have failed in a great measure
to make those results of practical value, for the want of correct
topographical maps, upon which to delineate the geographical
formations and mineral deposits.”[15] This
report led to another memorial to the legislature, which also
went nowhere. As we have seen, even efforts to fortify the
French-Smith project with accurate measurements of longitudes
and latitudes of major cities in the state failed to pass the
legislature, although this proposal was endorsed by both the
State Engineer and Surveyor, and by the head of the U.S. Coast
Survey.[16]

So matters stood until 1875.
In the intervening years, nothing was done—first because
of the Civil War put all non-military mapping activities on
hold, and later in part because the cartographic efforts of
the federal government were focused on mapping the western
states. (This was the period of the famous Wheeler, King, Powell
and Hayden surveys.) In addition, after the death of Simeon
De Witt in 1834, there was no strong leadership in the New
York Surveyor General’s office. In 1846, the
office of Surveyor General was abolished, and it was replaced
by the position of “State Engineer and Surveyor,” whose
responsibilities included the construction of canals and other
activities in addition to mapping. Verplanck Colvin later remarked: “A
stupor seems to have fallen upon the surveys of the State from
the time of this amalgamation of offices down to the time of
the close of the War of the Rebellion.”[17] One
reason for this “stupor” is that the position of
State Surveyor and Engineer was an elected one, and it was
occupied by a rapid succession of individuals who were often
more adept at politics than at engineering or surveying.

The New York State Survey

Finally, in 1876, the American
Geographical Society once again appointed a committee to consider
a topographical survey of New York and report back to the Society.[18]
This committee was chaired by James Terry Gardiner (1842-1912),
a graduate of Yale and of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Gardiner (who, to the confusion of librarians and researchers,
spelled his name Gardner for much of his life) was to become
a major player in the events of the following decade. Trained
as a civil engineer, he had already participated in the California
Survey, and had served on the 40th Parallel Survey with his
friend Clarence King. Gardiner’s achievements in the
western states included the creation of the first map of Yosemite
Valley.[19]

The report of this committee
is a particularly complete and detailed statement of the case
for a statewide topographic mapping program.[20] This
report was issued under Gardiner’s
name, and judging from its date of publication (less than two
weeks after the constitution of the committee), it must have
been substantially completed before the committee was created—probably
for the purpose of rubber stamping a document prepared by Gardiner.
Although Gardiner’s overall proposal is similar to those
made in the 1850s, it is much more convincingly stated. Gardiner
maintained that the reason of “primary and pressing importance” for
detailed topographic mapping of the state was the need for
accurate land assessment as a basis for taxation, and he gave
several pages of illustrations to prove his point. His report
breathes the attitude of nascent professionalism that was coming
to dominate cartography and other aspects of American society
at the end of the nineteenth century: “That a survey
to be accurate over so large an area must be made by the trigonometric
method, is evident to all competent engineers. When this is
done, and each property, town, and county is mapped on a perfectly
accurate method by disinterested State officers, whose high
scientific position, attainments and experience entitle their
results to absolute confidence, then, and then only, can each
know whether they are paying their proper proportion of taxes.”[21]

Gardiner also mentioned the
importance of having accurate land boundaries to prevent and
settle legal disputes. Here, too, he gave numerous illustrations,
and concluded: “We
are buying and selling, with solemn form of figures, acres
that were never owned, and defining them by objects that perished
with our ancestors.”[22] His final major justification
for a mapping program was public health. This line of argument
responded to the increasingly widespread concern about municipal
sanitation and water, which became more pronounced after the
1850s, partially in response to growing urbanization. Citing—among
other things—reports of the New York City Board of Health,
he made the case for topographic mapping as essential for planning
public works, such as sewage and water supply.

This report prompted the passage
of a law in 1876 establishing the New York Survey.[23]
An unpaid commission was established to oversee it, which consisted
of a number of eminent New Yorkers: Ex-Governor Horatio Seymour,
Vice President William A. Wheeler, Lieutenant Governor William
Dorsheimer, John V.L. Pruyn, Robert S. Hayle, Francis A. Stout,
and Frederick L.Olmstead (who soon resigned and was replaced
by the surveyor George Geddes). These commissioners promptly
chose Gardiner as the Survey's first director.[24].

The new survey had an ambiguous
mandate: the law which established it was a two-paragraph item
in the appropriations bill of 1876, which allotted $20,000 “for
making an accurate trigonometric and topographical survey of
the State for the determination of State and county lines,” and
to locate at least one point in each county for the guidance
of local surveyors. This could be interpreted as either authorizing
a comprehensive topographic survey of the state, or as authorizing
a triangulation similar to the Borden Survey in Massachusetts,
which could then be used by local surveyors to construct more
accurate maps. Differences in interpretation of this mandate
helped create a bizarrely complex situation—replete with
personal, institutional, and political rivalries—which
lasted until the early 1890s. During this period, as we will
see, there were three competing state agencies involved in
surveying New York. In addition to the State Survey, these
were Verplanck Colvin’s Adirondack Survey, and the office
of the State Engineer and Surveyor. (The activities of the
last two of these agencies will be examined below.) There were
also three federal agencies active in surveying New York during
parts of this period—the U.S. Coast Survey, the U.S.
Lake Survey, and the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
Predictably, the situation turned into a circus.

The previously cited 1877 preliminary
report of the State Survey castigated existing maps, and asserted
the need for triangulation and topographic mapping. The tenor
of the report was accurately summarized by a headline in The
New York Times: “THE STATE SURVEY. FIRST REPORT
OF THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS—FORTY MILLIONS OF DOLLARS
LOST THROUGH IGNORANCE OF THE TOPOGRAPHY OF THE STATE—THE
MAPS OF NEW YORK WORSE THAT THOSE OF ANY OTHER CIVILIZED COUNTRY.”[25]

Not surprisingly, this report
echoed most of the themes of Gardiner’s 1876 pamphlet.
It emphasized the importance of detailed surveying for railroad
and cadastral mapping. It asserted that the best existing maps
of the state misplaced towns from one to three miles from their
actual locations, and that the location of boundaries and landmarks
was uncertain. In his appendix to the report of the commissioners,
Gardiner wrote: “If the purpose of maps is to describe
truthfully boundary-lines, towns, and topographical features
as they actually exist on the earth’s surface, then the
maps of this state are proved to be false witnesses; and the
sooner their character is known and condemned, the earlier
may improvement be looked for.”[26] The
answer to these problems was, at least for Gardiner and the
Commissioners of the Survey, obvious: “For
these evils we propose the same remedy that other governments
have tried with perfect success—a trigonometrical survey.”[27]
Clearly, they were thinking in terms of triangulation as a
preliminary to a state-sponsored program of systematic topographic
mapping.

Gardiner’s report was
widely reported and favorably commented on in such publications
as Science, the Scientific
American, the New York Times, and The North
American Review.[28] Reading these periodicals, it
is easy to see why Gardiner and other surveyors thought that
their arguments for a topographical survey were obvious and
generally accepted.

But, in spite of the favorable
reviews, even at this early date the State Survey was already
in serious political trouble. The events of the 1850s had shown
that there was a strong undercurrent of opposition in the State
Legislature to funding projects for surveying and mapping,
and the legislation of 1876 involved a compromise with these
forces. In spite of the widespread and vocal support for the
State Survey among the educated elite, many in the legislature
did not share this enthusiasm, which helps account for the
ambiguous wording of the act constituting the survey.

The storm broke over the State
Survey almost immediately. The original authorization of the
survey was through an item placed into a general appropriations
bill, which had been strongly opposed by the State Controller,
one Lucius Robinson, who withheld payment for the survey. Unfortunately
for the survey, Robinson was elected governor at the end of
1876. Robinson, a Democrat, was elected on a platform of cutting
government expenses to a bare minimum, and he proceeded to
take aim at the survey in his message to the legislature on
January 2, 1877. Not mincing words, he said:

Without any application by
the people, with no appreciable evil to remedy, with no practical
inconvenience in the experience of a hundred years, and at
a period of great pecuniary embarrassment, a plan is enacted
in an appropriation bill for embarking the State, against
the wishes of its people, in a work which promises to run
through half a century, and to cost an unlimited amount of
money. The mode and matter of the enactment are alike objectionable,
and I recommend the prompt repeal of that portion of the
supply bill.[29]

Governor Robinson’s remarks are intriguing, since they
apparently articulated attitudes that must have been widespread,
although they almost never made it into print. He put into
words the thoughts of those in the legislature (and presumably
many of their constituents) who did not see the need for a
comprehensive survey of the state, and regarded it as a wasteful
and expensive project designed to benefit an administrative
elite and their wealthy patrons.

In response to the governor’s
message, the supporters of the survey mustered their forces. The
New York Times editorialized
in its favor, and The Faculty of Columbia College passed a
resolution in its support.[30] Most of the
other colleges in New York also sent memorials to the State
Senate advocating the continuance of the survey.[31] Judging
from the editorial in The New York Times, the advocates
of the survey seem to have done some backtracking around this
time, and accepted the interpretation that the law for a “trigonometric
and topographical survey of the State” authorized only
a triangulation of the state, leaving it to local surveyors
to draw the detailed maps. Gardiner himself later conceded
that the original mandate of the survey was ambiguous, and
agreed (doubtless reluctantly) to carry out this narrower interpretation
of his responsibilities.[32]

On the basis of this compromise, efforts to repeal the survey
were beaten back, and Governor Robinson finally agreed to sign
an appropriations bill for the survey with the understanding
that its tasks were to be cut down to a minimum. He explained
his views in a memorandum he issued on signing the bill:

The State survey, as originally
proposed, contemplated a work of immense magnitude, of unlimited
expense, and of little, if any, practical value to the people
who were to pay for it. So long as it presented this appearance,
I embraced every proper opportunity of placing upon record
my earnest disapproval of it. I am now informed that the
visionary and objectionable views originally entertained
have been wholly abandoned, and that instead of surveying
the whole State, it is proposed simply to fix at small expense
a few points which may hereafter be used by any counties,
towns or individuals desiring to make surveys for themselves
in accordance with the new system. The bill is approved for
the reason that it is in harmony with this greatly modified
and unobjectionable plan. [33]

Gardiner accepted this limited
interpretation of his mandate, although he clearly would have
preferred to carry out a full-fledged topographic mapping program.
In his annual report for 1879, Gardiner lamented how little
he had been able to accomplish because of lack of adequate
funding, but nonetheless went on to describe the work he had
done in carrying out triangulation in central New York and
along the Hudson River. He reported that he had determined
by triangulation the location of fifty-two points in fifteen
townships, and added that the “elevations
of many important points were determined with precision, in
order that they may be used for future leveling.” He
reiterated “the principle to which I have so often called
attention, that a trigonometrical survey of a thick settled
country should be made once and for all, in such a manner as
to be readily used base for local surveys of every kind.”[34]

By this time, the State Survey
was becoming something of a political football. A newspaper
article dated April 10, 1877, lamented that, in spite of Governor
Robinson's acquiescence to the existence of the Survey, certain
unnamed politicians were allegedly plotting to subvert it:

So long as its existence hung on a thread the politicians,
with one or two exceptions, did not concern themselves much
about its management. But now that this thread has thickened
to a cable, and it appears that a considerable number of
assistants must be employed by the director, half a dozen
of the most scandalous wirepullers in the Legislature have
combined in a scheme to control these appointments in their
own interest. Their notion is that the Commissioners and
directors must be forced to name subordinates by their dictation
or they will break up the whole concern.[35]

Political changes seem to have played a role in enabling
Gardiner to continue his work. Robinson was defeated in his
bid for reelection in 1879, and was replaced by Republican
Alonzo Cornell, who held office from 1880-1882. Cornell appears
at least not to have been actively hostile to the survey.

In 1882, another cost-cutting Democrat, Grover Cleveland,
was elected governor. Cleveland prided himself on being a watchdog
of the public’s money—an attitude he carried over
to his presidency, where he vetoed more bills than any other
U.S. president. Cleveland explained his concerns about the
State Survey in a veto message for an item in an 1883 appropriation
bill. He began by quoting Governor Robinson’s memorandum
supporting a minimal Survey. Picking up on this theme, Cleveland
remarked:

That the promoters of this
scheme have disappointed the expectations of my predecessor
is shown by the fact that since it was made $76,700 have
been appropriated, and the item of this year carries it to
$92,500, making an aggregate cost of $118,300, while in half
the counties of the State nothing has been done. I have approved
the appropriation of $15,800 in the bill under consideration
with great reluctance, and only for the purpose of providing
means to enable the accurate fixing, as was originally proposed,
of some point or line in each county for the guidance of
local surveyors. With this sum and the remainder of last
year’s appropriation,
I shall insist that this work shall be fully completed.[36]

As will be seen in the next
section, Cleveland’s wrath
extended as well to the Adirondack Survey. Rubbing salt into
wounds, he added: “the cost of printing the reports of
these surveys has been scandalously large,” and summed
up that he would not approve of any “similar scheme of
indefinite duration and unknown expense.”[37] The
remark about printing costs was probably aimed primarily at
the Adirondack Survey, several of the volumes of which were
heavily illustrated with engravings of various subjects, including
some that had nothing to do with surveying.

Cleveland's opposition to the
State Survey elicited a strong defense. Gardiner himself sent
Cleveland a nineteen page typewritten letter defending the
Survey and describing its history.[38] Gardiner
enclosed with this letter "memorials from
many of the great corporations who are particularly interested
in the security of boundaries, and the accuracy of surveys
of real estate; from a large number of prominent lawyers of
New York, and from the Faculties of Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, the Union University, the faculty of Columbia College,
the Cornell University, Hamilton College, the University of
Rochester, and Vassar College, as well as a resolution of the
New York Chamber of Commerce." In addition, the commissioners
of the State Survey submitted to Cleveland a six page evaluation
and endorsement of Gardiner’s work from C.O. Boutell
of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.[39]

In spite of this impressive
outpouring of support, Cleveland was not persuaded. In his
annual message on January 1, 1884, he reiterated his opposition
to both the Adirondack Survey and the State Survey, and suggested
that their duties be transferred to the State Engineer and
Surveyor.[40] Later in 1884, Cleveland vetoed all funding
for the State Survey. This caused field work to cease, but
it did not kill the survey itself. Because the act passed by
the legislature constituting the survey said nothing about
its duration, the survey could be disbanded only by another
legislative act, which did not happen.

Matters did not improve for
the State Survey under Cleveland's successor, Governor Hill.
In early 1885, a special committee was set up by the State
Assembly to investigate the State Survey and the Adirondack
Survey, and to report on the advisability of transferring their
responsibilities to the office of the State Engineer and Surveyor.
This committee, which relied on the testimony of two experts
from Columbia College and Union College, issued a report highly
favorable to the State Survey, and opposed to increasing the
responsibilities of the State Engineer and Surveyor.[41]
The report encouraged the legislature to fund the Survey, but
Governor Hill
vetoed the bill, much to
the indignation of Gardiner's numerous supporters, including The
New York Times and the American Geographical Society.[42]

By this time, the future of
the Survey had clearly become a matter of partisan politics,
with the Democrats favoring discontinuing the Survey and transferring
its functions to the State Engineer and Surveyor. The Democrats
claimed that it would be more economical to consolidate the
surveys, but their opponents maintained that this transfer
was designed to increase the Democrats' opportunities for patronage
by moving the survey to an elected office. The only vocal support
outside of the state government for this transfer seems to
have come from Democratic newspapers, such as The Brooklyn
Eagle.[43]

The unfunded survey continued
to exist on paper, and a final report was published in 1887
(see below). Gardiner and other advocates of the Survey continued
to lobby hard to keep it in existence. They called for an investigation
of the survey by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, and received
a “full
endorsement” from its director (at that time Julius Erasmus
Hilgard).[44] Thus armed, they called for a resumption
of the survey and funding for the production of detailed topographic
maps, but to no avail. Eventually, as we will see, the Democrats
had their way, and the functions of the State Survey were assigned
to the office of the State Engineer and Surveyor, which later
worked in cooperation with the USGS to carry out a topographic
mapping program for the state.

In spite of political opposition
and under funding, the embattled State Survey did achieve significant
results. It extended the primary triangulation of New York
to include 30 additional counties, ascertained the location
of several hundred points, and established the location of
a number of meridian lines for the use of local surveyors.
The triangulation done by the State Survey was later used by
the USGS in its mapping program. The only maps actually published
by the Survey are a few sheets showing its triangulation network.
The most interesting of these, first published in 1879, bears
the title: The State
of New York: Sheet No. 1, Eastern and Central New York.[45] This
map displays Gardiner's ambition to produce high-quality maps
of the state. Along with the triangulation network, it includes
some place names, boundaries, and topographical features. It
was to some extent designed as a work of propaganda for Gardiner's
mapping program, as is shown by this revealing note: "This
Map represents only those boundaries, points and topographical
features whose geographical positions are precisely known by
trigonometrical measurement. Locations of lines, towns and
topography not found by this method are omitted because they
are too uncertain to be accurately shown."

The State Survey also played
a significant role in the creation of the State Reservation
at Niagara Falls. With some appearance of inconsistency, (given
their opposition to the State Survey), Democratic Governors
Robinson, Cleveland, and Hill were strong advocates of this
reservation, and Republican Governor Cornell opposed it. Robinson
called on Gardiner to carry out the surveying and mapping for
this project. In 1879, Gardiner worked with Frederick Law Olmstead
on the preparation of a Special
Report of the New York State Survey on the Preservation of
the Scenery of Niagara Falls, which accompanied the fourth
annual report of the survey.[46] This report
was accompanied by several maps, the most interesting of which
shows the recession of Niagara Falls between 1842 and 1875.[47] The
report was the most important single document leading to the
creation of the Niagara Falls Reservation, which was finally
established in 1885.[48]

Between 1880 and 1885 Gardiner also played an important role
on the New York State Board of Health, which was created in
1880. He was widely consulted by municipalities throughout
the state about such matters as water supply, sewage and the
drainage of swamps. Although this work does not seem to have
led to the production of maps, his knowledge of topography
enabled him to make important contributions to these fields
of urban planning.

By 1886, Gardiner was finished
with his work on the State Survey and the State Board of Health.
By this time, both agencies were unfunded because of vetoes
by Governor Hill. In spite of his strong qualifications and
the backing of "the best
and the brightest," Gardiner was unable to muster enough
political support to continue his work. On June 16, 1885, he
resigned his position, accompanying his resignation with a
bitter recapitulation of his political travails.[49] The New-York
Daily Tribune editorialized on Gardiner's resignation: "Of
course every one who understands the subject—and the
Governor—knows that his real objection to the survey
is that hitherto it has had no connection with politics, and
has paid no tribute to the machine. If it had been in the hands
of a Democratic State Engineer and Surveyor the bill would
have been signed with many thanks to the legislature for doubling
its appropriation."[50]

The Tribune's judgment was echoed by most other newspapers,
although several Democratic papers, including the Brooklyn
Daily Eagle, bid Gardiner good riddance. It is worth quoting
an excerpt from a vituperative article, probably published
in the Eagle, if only to show the strength of the
political passions surrounding the State Survey:

It has been both the comedy and reproach of legislation at
Albany, for many Winters, that this bureau has begged or schemed
its way into appropriation bills, and has exhausted the resources
of sycophancy and press and social and quasi theological bulldozing
to blandish or coerce Governors into approving of its expensive,
interminable and practically useless work....

The position taken by Governors Cleveland and Hill can well
be submitted to citizens who read the evasive, abusive and
insolent letter of the retiring director printed to-day....
He has the effrontery to talk about the State Engineers and
Surveyors of the State as political persons, and of Robinson,
Cleveland and Hill, who favored the transfer of this work to
those officers, as desirous of putting this work into politics,
when his own arts of crawling and other maneuvers to continue
himself on the treasury have exceeded all the record in that
line known at the State Capital....

The action of Cleveland and Hill in suspending a fancy
job finds its vindication in honesty and reason. The State
survey which should be taken will be taken, now that the
person whose relation to it has been its bane with taxpayers
and reformers has gone out from it to an oblivion from which
he should never have been raised.[51]

Who would have thought that
surveying and map making could arouse so much political controversy?
All in all, the termination of the State Survey constituted
a stunning setback for the elite professional values represented
by Gardiner and his many supporters in the academic and business
communities.

Disgusted with politics and
institutional rivalries, Gardiner spent the rest of his career
in the healthier atmosphere of Gilded Age business, becoming
(according to his obituary in the New York Times): “Vice
President of the coal companies of the Erie Railroad and President
of the Mexican Coal and Coke Company, Randolph-Macon Coal Company,
and West Kentucky Coal Company.”[52]

Gardiner appears not to have
contributed to the writing of the final report of the State
Survey. This report was published in 1887 by the Board of Commissioners,
and it was accompanied by a detailed summary of the survey's
activities prepared by Gardiner's assistant, O.S. Wilson. From
this we learn that the primary triangulation of the state was
about two-thirds completed—in itself the most important
single accomplishment of the survey.[53] The
extent of this triangulation is shown in maps accompanying
the report.

The commissioners obtained
for their final report an endorsement from John Wesley Powell,
Director of the United States Geological Survey, who pronounced
Gardiner's triangulation work “admirably
executed.” Powell also proposed that future topographic
mapping of New York be carried out jointly on a cost-sharing
basis between the USGS and the state. He made one important
condition concerning this arrangement—namely that the
USGS should have "exclusive control" of the topographic
mapping, since he thought that only personnel employed by the
USGS had adequate training to carry out work that measured
up to the highest standards.[54] We shall see that a similar
cost-sharing proposal was adopted in 1892 (although the State
Survey was not resurrected to take part in it), and that it
has been continued to the present. But before considering these
later developments and the resulting maps, we should examine
two other surveys that contributed to the topographic mapping
of New York in the last half of the nineteenth century.

Verplanck Colvin and the Adirondack Survey.

The Adirondack Survey may be
the most unusual mapping activity ever funded by New York State.
It was basically the creation of Verplanck Colvin (1847-1920),
an Albany patrician, who began his career as an attorney in
his father’s law office. He was an outdoor
enthusiast with a strong interest in natural science. Starting
around the conclusion of the Civil War, he became involved
in exploring and mapping the Adirondacks. Colvin’s achievements
as an explorer in these mountains include the discovery of
the source of the Hudson River in Lake Tear of the Clouds.
He still has many admirers today—mainly
because of his eloquent campaign to preserve the mountains,
which played an important part in the establishment of the
Adirondack Forest Preserve.[55]

The Adirondack Survey overlapped the State Survey, and shared
with it similar problems, and had a similar fate. But it was
a much more idiosyncratic production, being almost entirely
the work of one man. Although Colvin shared political enemies
with the State Survey, he did not have the same widespread
academic and professional support.

In 1872, Colvin and his friends
managed to convince the legislature to award him $1000 "to
aid in completing a survey of the Adirondack wilderness of
New York, and a map thereof."[56] This single paragraph
inserted in an appropriations bill became the legal basis for
the survey, which continued until 1900. Later activities of
the survey were partially funded by the state, but Colvin paid
many of its expenses out of his own pocket.

Between 1872 and 1885, Colvin
made respectable progress in mapping the Adirondacks. Although
he was self-taught, he based his surveys on triangulation,
leveling, and other up-to-date methods.
He measured the elevations of numerous mountains, and claimed
to have discovered over 30 previously unmapped lakes. He carried
out a preliminary triangulation of about half of the Adirondacks,
and created a large number of reconnaissance maps, many of
which went unpublished. The most important results
of his work were included in his heavily illustrated annual
reports, which were published by the New York State Legislature.
They were unusually well written, and in them
Colvin described his adventures in the mountains, and promoted
the conservation of the Adirondack watershed, along with conveying
the results of his surveying.

Colvin’s early efforts
met with widespread support, and were summarized or favorably
reported upon in such periodicals as The New York Times, Scientific
American, Harper’s
Monthly Magazine, American Naturalist, and Forest and
Stream.

After these initial successes,
Colvin’s Adirondack
Survey gradually lost credibility and momentum. As with the
State Survey, the crisis came to a head in the middle of the
1880s. As we have seen, both surveys were opposed by Governors
Robinson, Cleveland, and Hill—mainly because of their
expense and their alleged lack of concrete accomplishments.
The funding for the Adirondack Survey was completely cut off
by Cleveland in 1884, although the survey continued to exist
on paper until 1900, and received some occasional funding from
the state.

In spite of opposition by Democratic
governors, Colvin continued to enjoy considerable political
support. In 1883, the Adirondack Survey was given by the legislature
the additional responsibility of surveying state lands in the
Adirondacks, for which it appropriated $15,000.[57] This
was no small matter, since it was not at all clear what lands
in the Adirondacks were actually owned by the state. Surveys
had been made in the Adirondacks going back to colonial times,
but they were often very inaccurate, and boundary markers (which
often consisted of slashed trees) were difficult or impossible
to locate. This led to a situation in which it was virtually
impossible to determine who owned much of the land in the Adirondacks.

Colvin devoted a great deal
of effort to straightening out this confused situation. He
was remarkably successful in locating old survey lines, and
in monumenting them with new markers. Colvin's work resurveying
old property boundaries is still used to evaluate and establish
land claims in the Adirondacks, and it is probably his most
important cartographic legacy to the people of New York.[58]

Thenceforth, Colvin took to
calling himself head of the “State
Land Survey” (although this title is not mentioned in
the enabling legislation), as well as head of the Adirondack
Survey. The expansion of the Adirondack Survey to include the
State Land Survey (not to be confused with the State Survey)
did nothing to increase Colvin's appropriations. In vetoing
a bill to pay for printing of the annual report of these agencies
in 1885, Governor Hill denied that these entities even existed: “There
is no such department in the laws of the State as the State
Land Survey, and there is no such official as Superintendent
of said Land Survey. If, by this item, it is intended to appropriate
money to be expended by the so-called Superintendent of the
Adirondack Survey, it is not deemed a wise expenditure.”[59]
Like Cleveland, Hill favored having the State Engineer and
Surveyor take over both the Colvin surveys and the State Survey.

Unlike the State Survey, Colvin’s
work received little support from professional surveyors or
organizations like the American Geographical Association. It
seems clear that Colvin’s
surveying was not highly regarded by either the Coast Survey
or the USGS. When Grover Cleveland cut off the funding of both
the Adirondack Survey and the State Survey, James T. Gardiner,
Director of the State Survey, grumbled to J.W. Powell (head
of the USGS) that Cleveland had “a great and well founded
prejudice against the Adirondack Survey, … and he is
too ignorant to discriminate.”[60] The fairly comprehensive
overview of surveying activities in New York published by the
commissioners of the State Survey in 1887 pointedly made no
mention of Colvin's work in the Adirondacks. Neither the State
Survey nor (later) the USGS incorporated Colvin's triangulation
of the Adirondacks into the maps they published showing the
progress of triangulation in New York. Writing in 1895, Henry
Gannett of the USGS remarked concerning the Adirondack Survey: “The
positions of a few points, numerous elevations, and a few local
sketch maps are, so far as the writer is aware, the only contributions
which this Survey has made to a knowledge of the geography
of the State. It is understood, however, that there is much
matter collected by this organization awaiting publication.”[61] This coolness toward Colvin’s activities does not
appear to be simply the result of snobbishness or of professional
animosity, since the USGS at this time was able to work quite
well with the best self-taught commercial surveyors, including
Robert P. Smith and Henry F. Walling.

By 1885, the New York Times was
editorializing that the Adirondack Survey was "an anomalous
and expensive superfluity"—adding that: "The
money it costs would be much more usefully spent if added to
the fund at the disposal of the director of the State survey,
whose competency and efficiency are not disputed."[62]

Nonetheless, Colvin's work
should not be dismissed lightly. The best (and apparently only)
formal evaluation of his work by professional surveyors is
a report on state mapping activities made for the Assembly
in 1885. This report—which was
prepared by W.P. Trowbridge of Columbia College and W.S. Chaplin
of Union College— purported to "have examined critically
and in detail the methods employed in the Adirondack survey." Its
authors remarked that: "these examinations were begun
with strong prejudices, on our part, against what may be termed
the scientific integrity of this survey—prejudices which
were produced by an examination of Mr. Colvin's several annual
reports." They concluded, however, that the triangulation
and other technical work done by Colvin was of high caliber: "it
is doubtful whether the survey is excelled in accuracy and
detail by any survey of a similar character conducted under
similar circumstances."[63]

Balancing these words of praise
, Trowbridge and Chaplin complained about the failure of the
Adirondack survey to publish many maps, and especially to produce
detailed topographic maps. They concluded by recommending "the
creation of a commission of not less than three technical
experts to advise
with Mr. Colvin with reference to the execution of final maps,
the publication of the results, and the work necessary to complete
the survey of the region already covered by his trigonometrical
survey; and also as to the best course to be adopted for extending
the work into the dense forest region further to the westward
of his present operations."[64]

The support that this report
gave to the Adirondack Survey was considerably more equivocal
than that which it gave to the State Survey. The consultants
were almost certainly right in pointing out some major weaknesses
in Colvin's work—his
failure to publish topographic maps, and his inability to synthesize
his detailed surveys to produce publishable maps of large areas.
As early as 1875, Colvin had complained about the difficulty
of topographic surveying in forested areas, and this continued
to be a problem for him.[65] Colvin almost certainly would
have benefited from expert help with such matters. The proposed
commission of experts never came into being, which suggests
that Colvin's most serious problem was not so much technical
incompetence as an inability to work with colleagues or under
the direction of others.

To give Colden his due, it
should be acknowledged that he was quite good at analyzing
his situation in writing. Probably as an indirect response
to the criticisms of this legislative commission, his annual
report for 1885 contained a very clear exposition of his methods
and of the problems he faced as a surveyor, along with a well
thought-out short history of land surveying in New York.[66]

Opposition to Colvin’s
work became increasingly widespread outside of narrow political
and professional circles. This is evident from a flippant (and
very unfair) review of Colvin’s
1886 annual report in Forest and Stream, a publication
that earlier had enthusiastically supported Colvin:

The most unique report of the many that have come to the
Legislature this season and been printed at the expense
of the State is Verplanck Colvin’s Adirondack State
Land Survey. This is a sort of perennial state institution
that started in 1872 with an appropriation of $1000, has
been going on ever since, and is not finished yet, another
appropriation being asked from the present Legislature to
continue it. The total cost so far has been $71,775. It is
the oldest of the State commissions. The maximum amount expended
was $17,500 in 1880, and it has been tapering off since,
though $15,000 is now asked for.

The report itself is prettily got up and has a lot of pictures
of lakes and mountains and Verplanck Colvin surveying them
in it. It is about ten inches by six, and two inches thick,
bound in blue cloth, and well printed. On the outside of the
cover is stamped a picture of Verplanck Colvin on the top of
a frame observation tower. The name of Verplanck Colvin appears
at the top of every other page, and “Verplanck Colvin,
superintendent” is printed at the top of pictures of
lakes and mountains. Colvin is a handsome young man with a
fascinating look that any girl would take to at once. His hair
is black and curly, his complexion is dark, his moustache curly,
and his black eyes have a sad, yearning expression. He is the
whole survey, and the report is a sort of annual story of how
he spent the last year in the Adirondacks. Here is a sample
of a few days’ experiences….

There is more like this.
At one place the report tells of the red snow that fell.
In another chapter he tells of climbing the mountain and
camping out. Interspersed as illustrations are photographs
of Indians, tripods, signal stations, and rural inhabitants.
There has been a big demand for the book, and no wonder,
for it is a story of Adirondack adventure printed at State
expense. It is hard to see just where the surveying and official
part of it comes in, but, the children of all the farming
constituents, to whom country Assemblymen send their copies,
read it like a real story book.[67].

In spite of ridicule and opposition,
the Adirondack Survey sputtered on for decades. Colvin continued
to enjoy substantial support from the legislature, and (unlike
Gardiner) he did not give up in disgust. He continued the survey
at least on a minimal basis in those years when he could get
no funding. In 1887, he published a brief but spirited defense
of his activities against the criticisms of Governor Hill.[68]

After 1888, attempts were made
to enter into a cooperative agreement between State Land Survey
under Colvin and the USGS for the purpose of mapping New York.
This proposal was delayed for four years—largely because
of the unwillingness of Powell and Gannett to accept conditions
that Colvin and his legislative allies wanted to impose.[69]
Colden still had considerable support in the legislature, and
in 1891 he was backed by the Republican Party for the position
of State Engineer and Surveyor, although he was defeated by
the Democratic Candidate, Martin Schenck.[70] When
a cooperative agreement was finally signed in 1893, it was
between the USGS and the State Engineer and Surveyor, who was
still Schenck.

An attempt was made by the
legislature in 1894 to revive the Adirondack Survey, but it
was vetoed by Governor Flower (another Democrat), who tartly
noted “the strenuous opposition
to the character of the work and the manner of its carrying
on.”[71] The minimally funded Adirondack
Survey continued to exist on paper until 1900, when Governor
Roosevelt finally put an end to Colvin’s work for the
state. Colvin bitterly withdrew from the scene—taking
most of his maps and papers with him, which he claimed were
his personal property. Many (but not all) of these were later
retrieved (or arguably stolen) from Colvin’s back porch
by an official from the Forest, Fish, and Game Commission,
and now repose in the archives of the Department of Environmental
Conservation.[72] In 1901, Colvin unsuccessfully
filed a claim against the state for $375,241, which he thought
was owed for past services.[73]

In spite of the controversies
surrounding Colvin’s
career, he did make important contributions to the mapping
of the Adirondacks. He carried out a triangulation of about
two-thirds of the Adirondack area, and his published reports
contain many maps of specific places within the Adirondacks,
some of which are fairly extensive.[74] He
listed in his reports numerous positions he had fixed and elevations
he had measured. Many of these locations were identified with
bench marks. He also determined the boundaries of old colonial
land tracts in the Adirondack area, as well as the boundaries
of towns and counties. What he did not do is produce a detailed
map of the Adirondack region as a whole. As early as 1875,
he had announced his intention to produce a topographic map
of the entire region at a scale of 1:63,360, but he never came
anywhere near to accomplishing that goal.[75]

Colvin’s surveys did
contribute—to an extent
that has never adequately been investigated—to the many
detailed maps of the Adirondack region published by others
between 1870 and 1900. Some of these were drafted by private
individuals, such as William Watson Ely (d. 1879) and Seneca
Ray Stoddard (1843-1917), who were responding to the demand
for maps for the tourist trade, which was fast becoming a mainstay
of the Adirondack economy.[76]
It has been asserted by one qualified observer that Stoddard “quickly
adopted the revised information gleaned from Colvin’s
surveys of the 1870s.”[77] In the
1881 edition of his Adirondacks Illustrated, Stoddard
gave explicit thanks to Colvin for information on “portions
of the Lower Saranac Lake, the Mud Pond region, Beaver Lake
and a section of Beaver River and for valuable table of altitudes.”[78]
Aside from his purely cartographic contributions to such maps,
Colvin contributed indirectly to their very existence because
of the publicity he gave to the Adirondack Region as a tourist
destination, and through his annual reports, his public lectures,
and the articles he wrote for popular journals.

Colvin played an even less
visible role in the production of maps of the Adirondack region
by state agencies. Colvin played an important part—which
was acknowledged by both contemporary and recent observers—in
raising support for the creation of both the New York State
Forest Reserve in 1885, and for the creation of the Adirondack
Park in 1892. The agencies administering these lands needed
detailed land use and land ownership maps, which they created
from various sources. None of these maps explicitly acknowledged
Colvin as a source of geographic information, although a few
of them contained vague statements, such as that they were "compiled
from the official maps and field notes on file in the state
departments at Albany." It is nonetheless certain that
Colvin’s maps were used extensively in creating these
works, since (prior to the involvement of the USGS in this
area in the 1ate 1890s) no one else had produced detailed
surveys of most of the Adirondacks. Rivalry between the Adirondack
Survey and other state agencies (especially the office of the
State Engineer and Surveyor) explains the lack of an explicit
acknowledgement of Colvin's contribution to the creation of
these maps.[79]

The first of this important
series of Adirondack maps published by the state appeared in
1884. The most detailed of them was prepared for Forest
Commission by the office of the State Engineer and Surveyor,
and covered the Adirondack Region in twenty sheets at a scale
of one mile to an inch. A rare and little known map, it bears
the title Map of the Adirondack
Wilderness and Adjoining Territory.[80] In
the same year, the Forest Commission published a reduced-scale
version of this map (which appeared in its annual report),
and a Map
of the Adirondack Plateau Showing the Position & Condition
of Existing Forests.[81] These served
as prototypes for a whole sequence of maps of the Adirondack
region. The 1890 edition was the first official map to use
the famous “blue
line” to show the boundaries of the proposed Adirondack
State Park, although Colvin had produced maps marking the Forest
Reserve with a blue line much earlier.[82]
A series of large-scale wall maps showing the Adirondack Park
commenced in 1893 with a: Map of the Adirondack Forest
and Adjoining Territory Compiled from the Official Maps and
Field Notes on File in the State Departments in Albany.[83]
The most recent (1993) version of this map is available online.[84]

It is difficult to determine
why the Adirondack Survey failed to produce detailed maps covering
larger areas, or why Colvin’s
work came under so much criticism. Lack of funding from the
state and professional rivalries are doubtless part of the
explanation. There can be no doubt that over the years the
Adirondack Survey did an immense amount of work. In addition
to published works, Colvin left behind a quantity of
unpublished field books and manuscript maps, most of which
are now in the possession of the New York State Dept. of Environmental
Conservation. These records include more than 500
unpublished maps—many of which include contour lines
and show triangulation stations.[85] They
reflect careful surveying of numerous specific areas, and they
were certainly much more accurate than anything which preceded
them. The map shown in Figure 12.3 is typical of these unpublished
works. It is a pity that Colvin was unable to synthesize this
material to produce a more substantial legacy of printed maps.

The Adirondack Survey was so
much a personal creation that it reflects both the strengths
and weaknesses of Colvin's personality. It probably owed its
long existence to Colvin’s abilities
as a writer and a lobbyist, and to his (and his family’s)
legislative connections, as well as to his considerable skills
as a surveyor and mapmaker. But he seems to have lacked judgment,
the ability to set priorities, to work with superiors and colleagues,
and to synthesize his work in a usable form. Probably these
personal weaknesses, more than under funding or political opposition,
account for his failure to produce a more impressive collection
of published maps.

The U.S. Lake Survey.

Another organization that contributed
to the surveying of New York in the last half of the nineteenth
century was the little-known U.S. Lake Survey. The Lake Survey
was established by Congress in 1841 specifically to survey
the Great Lakes. This task would seem to have fallen within
the purview of the U.S. Coast Survey, but it will be recalled
that the head of the Coast Survey at that time, F.R. Hassler,
was under constant attack in Congress. Evidently as a way of
expressing its displeasure with Hassler, Congress created this
new agency and put it under the jurisdiction of the rival U.S.
Army Corps of Topographical Engineers. The Lake Survey carried
out its mission using triangulation and other techniques very
similar to those used by the Coast Survey, and it can be credited
with producing the first reliable charts of the Great Lakes.
It continued in existence until 1970, when (along with the
U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey) it was brought under the jurisdiction
of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).[86]

Most of the initial activities
of the Lake Survey took place on the western portion of the
Great Lakes. In 1853, the Corps published its first chart of
Lake Erie. Only after the Civil War did it begin comprehensive
surveying of the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, the Niagara
River, and the eastern end of Lake Erie. The agency completed
its survey of Lake Ontario in 1875 and of Lake Erie in 1877.[87]
The resulting charts show shorelines, but little inland detail.
Of particular importance for the mapping of New York, the Lake
Survey extended its triangulation network along the shores
of lakes Erie and Ontario—thereby
making an important contribution to constructing the framework
for the future detailed mapping of New York. Henry Gannett,
who was so critical of Colvin, remarked that “the character
of the geodetic work of this organization [the Lake Survey]
is high.[88]

Revival of the Office of State Engineer and Surveyor
and Its Cooperation with the USGS

The Office of the State Engineer
and Surveyor showed little interest in being involved with
trigonometric surveying or detailed mapping projects prior
to about 1880. Its primary activities in the decades immediately
following the Civil War involved the construction and regulation
of canals and railroads. As late as 1879, the incumbent State
Engineer (Horatio Seymour) recommended that the State Survey,
rather than his own agency, should conduct a survey by triangulation
to remeasure the boundary between New York and Pennsylvania.[89]

After 1880, with both the State
Survey and the Adirondack Survey under fire, interest revived
in transferring their functions to the Office of the State
Engineer and Surveyor. Seymour proposed in his annual report
for 1883 that this be done, and the idea was taken up by Governor
Cleveland in his message to the legislature the following January.[90]
This proposal was successfully resisted by Gardiner's allies
in the legislature and the press. The
New York Times, summarized the case against the transfer
as follows:

The trouble is that, as the official existence of Mr.
Seymour himself demonstrates, the election of a State Engineer
and Surveyor on a general ticket tends to put into the office
a man who knows more about conventions than he does about
surveying. When any work is undertaken, like the State Survey,
which calls for a high degree of scientific exactness and
professional skill, the official skill is unequal to it,
and the better way to get it done is to appoint scientific
engineers to do it, instead of letting the official engineers
supervise what they are presumably incompetent to conduct.[91]

The position
of State Engineer and Surveyor remained an elected one (with
two year terms) until 1924, but the office nonetheless gradually
became more involved in mapping. In 1883 the State Engineer’s
office produced a map of the Niagara Reservation (poaching
on Gardiner’s territory),
and in 1884 (as previously noted) it became involved in producing
maps of the Adirondacks for the Forest Commission.[92]
In 1885, Governor Hill again proposed to abolish the State
Survey and the Adirondack Survey, and have their functions
performed by the Office of State Engineer and Surveyor.[93]
This idea was considered by a committee of the State Assembly,
which recommended against it.[94] But it
was revived by the State Controller Chapin in 1887 as part
of a plan to save the state money by consolidating offices—a
proposal which this time was supported by The New York
Times.[95]

The struggle struggle over
control of the state's mapping activities took a new turn with
the entry of the USGS onto the scene
in 1888.

The early years of USGS mapping
in New York are described very well in the article published
in 1895 by Henry Gannett (1846-1914), which as already been
cited.[96] Gannett was a major figure in
the USGS, which was organized in 1879, mainly through the consolidation
of the various federal surveys active in the West. Gannett
had lobbied for the creation of the USGS, and he was appointed
by John Wesley Powell as its Chief Geographer. Beginning in
1882, the USGS under Powell and Gannett undertook an ambitious
program to map the entire nation in scales of 1:125,000 and
1:62:500.[97] From the beginning, there
had been some discussion about a cooperative program between
the USGS and a state agency (initially the State Survey) to
map New York State, but because of the rivalries and turbulent
politics surrounding mapping in New York, it was a number
of years before anything was done.

The way Gannett presented the
matter, virtually nothing had been done to create scientific
maps of New York until the USGS came onto the scene:

Prior to 1888 there were no maps of any part of the
state which were worthy the name. The only map of the State
in existence, known as the French map, was made by private
parties, was compiled mainly from subdivisional [sic] surveys
made a century ago, and from traverses of the roads and railroads.
It is little more than a diagram of roads. This was published
on a scale of 1:300,000, that is, about 4 3/4 miles to an
inch, and practically represents all that was known of the
State.[98]

Gannett’s harsh judgment
resembles that of James Gardiner and other professional cartographers,
but it ignores or downplays the contributions of the Coast
Survey, the State Survey, the Adirondack Survey, and even J.H.
French. In evaluating such statements, it should be kept in
mind that Gannett had a vested interest in the promotion of
his own agency, and in the production of topographic maps.
It is true that his judgment has been mostly vindicated by
time, and few today would deny that detailed topographic maps
are useful and worth the expense. But this does not mean that
the opponents of Gannett and those who thought like him were
fools, or that maps like the French Map were not useful in
their time. Much of the history of cartography of America has
been written by professional surveyors and mapmakers who favored “scientific
mapping,” or by scholars
sympathetic to their viewpoint. This is cartographic history
written by the victors, and its celebration of science and
progress sometimes obscures what actually happened and why.

In 1888, the USGS began mapping
quadrangles in New York at a scale of 1:62:500 (or one mile
to an inch). Maps at this scale are often referred to as “fifteen
minute maps,” because
each side covers 15 minutes (or one fourth of a degree) of
the earth’s surface. They are also referred to as “topographic
maps,” since they were the first widely available maps
in the United States to show topography by means of contour
lines. USGS topographic mapping of New York began in the vicinity
of New York City, and between 1888 and1891, some 4,159 square
miles were covered—mostly in the metropolitan area and
in the lower Hudson Valley. Figure 12.4 shows
a portion of one of these early fifteen minute maps.

The creation of topographic
maps of New York received a considerable boost when, in 1893,
a cooperative agreement was finally signed between the USGS
and the New York State Engineer and Surveyor.[99] Under
this arrangement, the state and the federal governments agreed
to split the cost of surveying and mapping in New York. This
idea was not a new one. As early as 1880, Clarence King (then
head of the USGS) had corresponded with New York State geologist
James Hall about the possibility of a cooperative mapping program.[100]
As previously noted, this agreement came about only after considerable
negotiation between Powell and Colvin. Powell found himself
unable to work with Colvin and his allies in the legislature.
It seems that both Powell and Colvin basically wanted to control
the operation, and Powell finally found the State Engineer
and Surveyor to be more compliant.

Both Colvin and Gardiner must have been mortified by this
arrangement, which each had sought for the agency under his
direction. After the agreement with the office of the State
Engineer and Surveyor was concluded, Gardiner placed an undated
clipping from the Albany Argus announcing the agreement
in his scrapbook, scribbling on it: "Such is fame! Keep
this!"[101]

The new arrangement was successful,
and surprisingly uncontroversial. A reading of the cooperative
agreement shows that the USGS was left in almost complete control
of the actual process of surveying and mapping—thus laying
to rest concerns about the ability of the State
Engineer and Surveyor to carry out the work. New York’s
role was restricted mainly to helping to set priorities for
areas to be mapped, and to making corrections of the work done
by USGS surveyors. New York benefited by paying only half of
the cost of surveying the maps, and the USGS took care of their
publication. This cost sharing arrangement has continued in
one form or another to the present day. By 1903, detailed topographic
mapping covered about 64 percent of the state.[102] It
was not until the end of the 1920s that New York completely
mapped at a scale of 1:62,500.[103]

We know a good deal about how
these 15 minute maps were constructed, thanks in part to Gannett,
who also wrote the first Manual
of Topographic Methods for the USGS.[104] The
methods employed were similar to those of the Coast Survey.
After the initial primary triangulation, draft quadrangle maps
were made using a plane table. A great deal of emphasis was
placed on finding the exact location of numerous points, such
as hill tops, church steeples, and cross roads. Some of these
were marked by the well-known “bench marks,” which
are still used in many state and federal surveys today. Bench
marks answered the need for property surveyors and others to
be able to locate the precise location of the lines of their
own surveys.[105]

The most characteristic feature
of these maps is the use of elevation contour lines, which
were generally spaced at twenty feet apart. Users of early
topographic maps should be aware that the contour lines only
approximate the actual topography. As described by Gannett,
there is a certain lack of precision in the way the lines were
drawn. As Gannett put it: “Heights
for the location of contour lines are measured by a variety
of means dependent upon the accuracy with which they are desired.”[106]
The means for measuring elevations included the use of an instrument
called the Wye level, vertical triangulation, and the use of
barometers. Here is how Gannett describes the final stage of
drawing a map using a plane table:

When the locations and height measurements upon a
sheet have been completed, all these data are assembled upon
one sheet, and then taken in hand by the most experienced
sketcher in the party, usually its chief, who goes over the
sheet, occupying all points which seem desirable, and sketches
the natural and artificial features, referring them for position,
size and shape to these located points and height measurements.
Since the positions are scattered over the sheet, usually
with a dozen or more on each square inch, there is little
room for error in the sketching.[107]

Several things can be said
about the procedures described by Gannett. The first is that
undoubtedly they did succeed in giving a more faithful, detailed,
and reliable portrait of the land than anything done by previous
map makers. The second is that these maps by no means provide
a mirror image or a replica of the landscape in miniature,
in spite of some of the rhetoric used by Gannett and other
advocates of topographic mapping. It is clear, even from Gannett’s
description, that there was a considerable amount of subjectivity
involved in the creation of these maps. Items were included
or excluded by the mapmaker depending on his personal judgment
of their importance, which may or may not be the same as our
own. The desire to produce quick results led to the introduction
of various types of errors on some maps. The sketching of contour
lines, probably more than other operation, involved a good
deal of estimation and guesswork. Often, considerable differences
can be detected when one compares the contour lines on one
of these old fifteen minute maps with those on a modern USGS
map, although it should be noted that the accuracy of contour
mapping gradually improved after 1890.[108]

In spite of their limitations, the old fifteen minute maps
are much used for historical research. They show roads, houses
(but not the names of their owners), streams, rivers, mines,
and various other features, including (of course) topography.
Their detail and relative accuracy accounts for much of their
appeal and use. Researchers wanting to know the location of
old roads or houses can be reasonably certain that they were
actually located where they were shown on these maps. They
are popular with those who want to locate old mines or railroads,
or to get some idea of the layout of a town 100 years ago.
Some of the uses of these maps are less obvious. For example,
geologists use them to locate streams and hills that have been
bulldozed or covered up by recent development.

Maps in the fifteen minute
series can be found in many large libraries and historical
societies. Almost all of them are also available online.[109]

Mapping for Specialized Purposes

In
chapter 10, the origins of thematic mapping were briefly reviewed,
and some of the few thematic maps of New York that were published
prior to the Civil War were described. In the second half of
the nineteenth century, thematic mapping became more widespread—both
in New York and throughout the nation. Advances in
such areas as geology, soil science, public health, and demography—as
well as in statistics—went hand in the hand with the
creation of increasingly sophisticated and numerous thematic
maps. Generally speaking, thematic mapping in New York, as
elsewhere in the United States, still reflected developments
in Europe.

Geological Maps

The decades
immediately following 1890 saw the extensive publication of
geological maps by both state and federal agencies.[110]
Detailed geological mapping requires reasonably good topographic
mapping to use as a base, and the increasing production of
15 minute maps made this available. The production of geological
maps was part of the mandate of the USGS, and actually preceded
the decision to produce topographic maps by that agency.

The best known geological map
product begun by the USGS in the decades before the First World
War is the Geologic
Atlas of the United States, which is a set of 227 folios
published between 1894 and 1945. The maps in this series are
at a scale of 1:62,500, and are based on the USGS topographic
maps produced at that scale. These portfolios are available
in many large research libraries, and online from Texas A&M
University.[111] Only a small number of
the folios in this series cover parts of New York State, with
individual folios for Niagara (1913), Watkins Glen – Catatonk
(1909), New York City (1902), and several areas on New York’s
borders with New Jersey and Pennsylvania. An example of this
type of map is shown as Figure 12.5. Many
more geologic maps covering parts of New York State were produced
by the New York State Geological Survey, and are listed in
online catalogs and databases.[112]

A new geological map of the
entire state of New York was published in its preliminary form
in 1892, and in a widely distributed edition in 1894.[113]
This is sometimes known as the Hall-McGee map, since James
Hall supervised its creation and W.J. (William John) McGee
drafted it. This was the first substantially new geological
map of New York State since 1842, and it is remarkable that
Hall was involved in the production of both maps, which are
separated by more than 50 years. This map was a cooperative
project between New York State Museum and the United States
Geological Survey. The USGS was responsible for producing the
base map and for publishing the geological map. W.J. McGee,
a distinguished geologist and ethnologist, was employed by
the USGS. A revised version of this map was authored by state
geologist Frederick James Hamilton Merrill and published in
1901.[114] Later geological maps of New York are basically
revisions of the Merrill map.

Soil Maps

We have seen that a small number
of soil maps appeared in New York State in the first half of
the nineteenth century. These early soil maps were based almost
completely on the geology of underlying rocks, and consequently
were quite different in concept from modern soil maps. Modern
ideas of the origin and nature of soils originated in Russia
in the 1870s, and were further developed in Western Europe
and the United States in the first decades of the twentieth
century. Soil maps published prior to about 1930 reflect this
changing situation, and consequently, depending on date of
publication, they are more-or-less different in content and
approach from recent soil maps.[115]

Soil maps started to appear in quantity after organization
of the Division of Soils in U.S. Dept. of Agriculture in 1899.
This organization became the Bureau of Soils in 1901, which
in 1927 became part of the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils. These
name changes are reflected on the soil surveys, and are important
for locating them in library catalogs.

The earliest modern soil map
in New York State covered the Westfield area in Chautauqua
County. Between 1901 and 1905 a total of eight soil maps were
produced, only two of which covered entire counties (1903 soil
map of Long Island, which covered Nassau and Suffolk Counties).
After 1905, most soil maps covered entire counties, and a cooperative
arrangement was made between Cornell Agricultural College and
the federal Bureau of Chemistry and Soils.[116] Between
1905 and 1920, an additional twenty-five counties were mapped.

These early soil maps resemble
geological maps in some respects. They also use USGS topographic
maps as a base, and both soil and geologic maps are notably
colorful. As
we have seen, soil maps and surficial geologic maps have a
common origin, and surficial geology and soils often remain
closely related. The categories used by geologists and soil
scientists are often quite different, however, and it is an
interesting exercise to compare a soil map with a surface geological
map of a particular area.

Soil surveys are an underutilized
resource, but they have many applications in addition to farming.
They can be useful for regional planning, land assessment,
flood control, and environmental evaluations. For many of these
uses, researchers will want to use the most modern soil maps
available, but the older editions can also be revealing. This
is particularly the case for those who are studying the relationship
between soils and human activities, especially in areas that
are now heavily urbanized. It should be noted that these early
soil maps were almost always accompanied by booklets, which
often provide useful information about environmental conditions
in the areas covered by the maps.

Modern soil surveys look quite
different from these early soil surveys. Recent soil surveys
take the form of booklets containing black and white aerial
photographs, which are marked up to show the distribution of
soil types. Although more detailed and precise than the older
soil maps, they are a lot less colorful and attractive. Because
modern soil survey booklets display their information on a
large number of discontinuous and visually unappealing photographs,
they are not as useful for obtaining an overview of the distribution
of soil types over large areas as the older maps. This often
makes the older soil maps better for such purposes as
public display and classroom instruction.

Locating old soil maps can
be difficult. Usually they are not cataloged separately by
libraries. If they are cataloged at all, they usually have
to be tracked down by looking for the booklet in which they
were usually published—they
can usually be found in catalogs by looking under “soil
survey” and the name of a particular county. Large research
libraries usually have at least a partial collection of soil
surveys. Stony Brook University has made available on the World
Wide Web a list of its fairly extensive collection of New York
State soil maps.[117]

Maps Concerned with Municipal Services and Public Health

A considerable
number
of maps were produced
during this period on such subjects as water supply, fire protection,
public health, and parks. Most of these, which can broadly
described as "thematic maps, " were produced for
individual cities. A small amount of this type of mapping was
done prior to the Civil War, as was seen in Chapter 10, but
it really took off after the end of that conflict. Its rise
was largely a consequence of the rapid growth of cities, and
of the attendant need for such things as improved sewerage,
garbage disposal, drainage, and water supply. Predictably,
most of the mapping of this type was done on behalf of the
state’s
(and the nation’s) largest city. Even though it was
not until later in the nineteenth century that the germ theory
of disease was developed, by the middle of the century progressive
municipal planners and reformers recognized the relationship
between public health and such things as sanitation, clean
water, drainage, and the maintenance of open spaces.[118]

The most prominent person engaged
in producing maps to improve living conditions in New York
after the middle of of the nineteenth century was one Egbert
Ludovicus Viele (1825-1902). He was earlier mentioned in passing
as advocating a topographic survey of the state in the 1850s.
Viele was trained as a military engineer at West Point, but
resigned his commission in 1853. In 1855, he was appointed
State Engineer of New Jersey, where he was in charge of a topographical
survey of that state. During the Civil War, he returned to
military duty, and held the rank of Brigadier General. Both
in military and civilian life, Viel was well aware of the importance
of good sanitation for the maintenance of health and life.
A fairly prolific author, he published several books and
pamphlets advocating improved public sanitation. After the
war, the primary focus of his activities was New York City.[119]

For our purposes, Viele is
most important for the engineering maps he produced of Manhattan
Island.
As early as 1856, he was appointed Chief Engineer of Central
Park, and drew up a plan for the park even before the involvement
of Olmsted and Vaux.[120]
Like other reformers of his time, Viele regarded parks as
"the lungs of the city," and important for public health.
Later in the 1850s, and again after the Civil War, he was
involved in producing detailed drainage maps of Manhattan,
which are still consulted by architects and engineers. He
also helped with the planning for New York’s
first subways.

Viele's most important contribution
to the mapping of Manhattan is a topographical map, which
among other things shows the original streams and marshes on
the island, which had been built over or were in the process
of being built over. The first version of this
appeared in 1865, and bears the title Topographical
Map of the City of New York: Showing Original Water Courses
and Made Land.[121]
An expanded version appeared in 1874 under the title Topographical
Atlas of the City of New York.[122]

These handsome maps, which
were constructed partially from surveys and partially from
old maps, show all of the former lakes, streams, swamps
and landfills underlying the streets and buildings of Manhattan.
They are not only of interest to map collectors and historians,
but are still used by engineers and architects, who sometimes
refer to them collectively as the "Water Map." Builders
need to know exactly what is underlying their structures, since
such things as underground streams can still flood basements
and cause foundations to settle. The importance of this mapping
has been noted in several recent articles and on Web sites.[123]

Some
surveying and mapping for municipal services occurred elsewhere
in New York State during this period, although none of it was
as spectacular as Viele's "Water Map." map
of NYC. It was noted earlier in this chapter that James Terry
Gardiner worked for the New York State Board of Health as well
as the State Survey.
Gardiner's work for the Board of Health involved a good deal
of surveying for such matters as draining swamps and construction
of sewers. He often served as a consultant on these matters,
and carried on an extensive correspondence with civil engineers
throughout the state. Some fairly simple maps dealing with
sewage and water supply for individual upstate towns were produced
by the Board of Health. They can be found in the New York State
Legislative Documents, although none of them are of more than
local interest.[124]

Statistical Maps

As previously noted, the classical
"thematic map" is a statistical map showing the geographical
distribution of such things as health or census statistics.
Such information can also be displayed by numbers
in tabular form, and often also by such graphic means as pie
charts and bar graphs. Statistical maps are commonplace today,
but they only slowly gained acceptance in the United States
in the decades between the Civil War and the First World War.

Almost all of the thematic
maps of New York discussed so far are not of this type. Even
the early disease maps mentioned in chapter 10 of this publication
do not quite qualify as statistical maps, since they show the
locations of individual occurrences of diseases, rather than
grouping the cases into numeric aggregates and mapping their
spatial distribution. Statistical
maps may make use of a number of
techniques, including isolines, gradient tints,
clustered dots, and graduated circles. The best
known and most common statistical maps today represent numerical
data by geographic categories, such as wards, census tracts,
or counties. These are known as
choropleth maps, and and use different colors or
techniques such as shading or cross hatching to represent different
concentrations of data in various areas. We see choropleth
maps so often today mainly because they are easy to churn out
using GIS and other computerized methods. Another type of
statistical map known as the isarithmic map, which
organizes data using contour lines, was frequently used prior
to the first world war. These maps (and their cousins dasymetric maps)
are more difficult to construct than choropleth maps, but can
often present data with fewer areal geographic distortions.

It appears that the first statistical
map of New York State showing population distribution was
published in 1865, and was based on the state census of that
year.[125] Although
many conceptually similar maps had appeared in Europe prior
to that date (and even a few in the United States), this map
is still a somewhat isolated precursor. It was only after
the U.S. Census Bureau began publishing statistical maps in
quantity for the 1870 census that such maps became widespread
in the United States.[126]
Indeed, throughout the period prior to the First World War
most statistical mapping published in the United States was
done by the federal government. Only a small number of maps
of New York were published by state agencies or private organizations.

Those interested in the statistical
mapping of New York State should pay careful attention to to
the publications of the U.S. Census Office in the decades after
1870. Although most of these census maps cover
all of the United States, or at least the states east of the
Mississippi River, they show county-level data for New York
State, and they are usually the only statistical maps available
that do this. The earliest in this series of Census Bureau
publications is entitled Statistical
Atlas of the United States Based on the Results of the Ninth
Census, 1870....[127].
It is available on the World Wide Web, and includes a variety
of thematic maps. These include maps showing such things as
geology, rainfall, temperature, woodlands, and croplands.
The maps showing such things as population statistics and disease
distribution are mostly isarithmic. They differ from
modern census maps in that they are not based on political
units, but rather than on statistical concentrations per square
mile. They include
such subjects as distribution of foreign population; various
diseases, such as malaria; distribution of "colored
population";
distribution of wealth; literacy; and birth rate. This volume
also includes a good deal of statistical data in the form of
bar charts and pie graphs—making
it a kind of tour de force of ways of visually presenting
statistical information, and reminding us of the close relationship
between statistical cartography and other forms of visual representation
of numerical data.

Similar volumes were published
for the censuses of 1880, 1890, and 1900.
The Census Office at that time resided in the Interior Department,
and was presided over by Henry Gannett, whom we have already
met wearing a different hat as head of the USGS's topographical
mapping division. These volumes follow the same general pattern
set by the 1870 census, although there is some increase in
the number and variety of the maps. All three of these volumes
are available online from the David Rumsey Collection.[128]
The 1900 volume is especially notable for its relatively detailed
maps showing rates of epidemic diseases at the county level
in New York and neighboring states.

It is no coincidence that the
Census Office took an interest in epidemiological maps after
1870. There was much interest in this subject, since it was
during the last decades of the nineteenth century that the
germ theory of disease was finally established, especially
through the publication in 1890 by Robert Koch of his famous
postulates. This fit in quite nicely with ongoing concerns
about urban health and sanitation.

In the long period between
the Civil War and World War I, remarkably few
statistical maps were published on the state and local levels
in New York. The long list of maps published in New York
State legislative documents during these years includes only
a few maps showing the distribution of disease in several locations,
along with some unremarkable meteorological and crop distribution
maps.

The most spectacular statistical
maps produced in New York during this period were made by the
Tenement House Committee of the Charity Organization of the
City of New York. This organization, which played an important
role in publicizing the dire conditions of tenement life,
produced a series of detailed demographic and epidemiological
maps of small areas in Manhattan with long titles like: "Map
showing over-crowding of buildings on lots and consequent lack
of light and air space also the prevalence of tuberculosis,
typhoid fever, scarlet fever and diphtheria in the tenement
house district bounded by 11th Avenue, 6th Avenue, West 17th
Street, West 14th Street."[129].
These maps remain in manuscript and can be viewed at the New
York Historical Society. Two overview maps drawn for this committee
by F.E. Pierce were published in Harper's
Weekly, and are available on the World Wide Web. This
publication includes two maps on one sheet bearing the
titles: Map
of City of New York Showing Densities of Population in the
Several Sanitary Districts, June 1, 1894 -- No. 2. Map
of City of New York Showing the distribution of Principal Nationalities
by Sanitary Districts (Figure 12.7).[130]

Figure 12.7. Large detail of F.E. Pierce's maps of
the City of New York for the Tenement House Committee. Library
of Congress, Geography and Map Division.

3. On the Borden survey, see: Simeon Borden and Robert Paine
Treat, “ Account of a Trigonometrical Survey of Massachusetts,
by Simeon Borden, Esq., with a Comparison of Its Results with
Those Obtained from Astronomical Observations, by Robert Treat
Paine, Esq., Communicated by Mr. Borden, Robert Treat Paine,
Simeon Borden,” Transactions of
the American Philosophical Society , New Ser., 9:1 (1846):
33-91; A.D. Butterfield, “History
and Development of Triangulation in Massachusetts,” The
Journal of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. 1:3-4
(1898): 285-299, 335-355.

5. Topographical Map of the State of Massachusetts, Based
on the Trigonometrical Survey by Simeon Borden. The Details
from Actual Surveys under the Direction of H. F. Walling.
(New York: H. & C. T. Smith and Co., 1861.)
For Walling’s activities, see Ristow, American
Maps, 327-338; Michael Buehler, “Henry F. Walling
and the Mapping of New England’s Towns, 1849-1857,” The
Portolan: Journal of the Washington Map Society 71 (Spring,
2008), 22-33.

6. E.B. Hunt, “Proposal for a Trigonometrical Survey
of New-York,” Proceedings of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science (Washington, D.C., 1852),
vol:no. 383-84; available on the World Web at: http://books.google.com/books?id=IDkLAAAAYAAJ.
See also Ristow, American Maps, 355-56.

7. Hunt, “Proposal for a Trigonometrical Survey,” 384.

8. Ibid., 382.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid., 383.

12. The text of the memorial was published
in The Independent (March
14, 1852): 47.

14. Bulletin of the American Geographical and Statistical
Society 2 (1857): 40-42.

15. Ibid., 41.

16. See also: “Report of the State
Engineer and Surveyor Relative to Map of the State,” New
York State Assembly Documents, 80th Session, 1857, vol. 2,
no. 114.

17. Verplanck Colvin: “An Historical Sketch of the Origin
and Present Condition of the New York State Land Surveys,” Appendix
B of his Report on the Progress of the Adirondack State
Land Survey to the Year 1886, with an Historical Sketch of
the Work and Table of Elevations (Albany, N.Y.: Weed,
Parsons and Company, 1886 ), 40.

18. “ Transactions of the Society for 1876,” Journal
of the American Geographical Society of New York 8 (1876),
28.

19. Biographical information on Gardiner can be found in the Dictionary
of American Biography, Appleton’s Encyclopedia,
and in his obituary published in The New York Times (Sept.
11, 1912, 11). The best source of information about Gardiner's
career is the unpublished papers in two collections at the
New York State Library (SC 11835 and CD 7027). These include
not only extensive correspondence, but also numerous newspaper
clippings and other materials saved by Gardiner.

20. James T. Gardiner, A Report to the Society on the
Uses of a Topographical Survey to the State of New York (New
York: American Geographical Society, January 26, 1876).

21. Ibid., 5.

22. Ibid., 8.

23. Laws of New York
State, 99th Session, Chap. 193 (April 29, 1876).

24. "Report of the Board of Commissioners
of the State Survey," New York State Senate
Documents,
100th Session, (1877), no. 19.
This report also includes a separate report by Gardiner, which
is included as an appendix.

25. The New York Times, Jan. 24, 1877, 2.

26. Gardiner, "Report of the Director" in "Report
of the Board of Commissioners" (1877), 27.

27. “Report of the Board of Commissioners,” 10.

28. In addition to the article in The New York Times quoted
above, see especially “Report of the Commissioners of
the New York State Survey,” The North American Review 124
(1877), 504-06.

30. The New York Times, Jan. 30, 1877, 4; The
New York Times, Feb. 17, 1877, 3.

31. Copies of these memoranda can be found in the James Terry
Gardiner scrapbook, New York State Library, Doan-Gardiner Papers
(SC 11835), Box 14, folder 1.

32. Gardiner to Grover Cleveland, [typewritten memorandum
on the origin and history of the New York State Survey, 1883],
New York State Library, James T. Gardiner Papers (CD 7027),
Box 2.

33. Quoted by Cleveland, in New York (State), The Public
Papers of Grover Cleveland, Governor (Albany, N.Y.:
Argus Publishing Company, 1883), 70-71. I have been unable
to locate a copy of Robinson’s signing memorandum.

34. “Report of the Director of the
New York State Survey, Showing the Progress of the Survey During
the Year 1879,” New
York State, Assembly Documents, 103rd Session (1880),
vol. 6, no. 86, 49-54.

38. This is the previously cited typewritten memorandum on
the origin and history of the New York State Survey, New York
State Library, Gardiner Papers, Box 2.

39. Letter signed by C.O.Boutelle, "Asst. in charge of
office of the U.S.C.& G. Survey." Enclosed in letter
from William Dorsheimer (head of the commssioners of the State
Survey) to Cleveland (April 10, 1884). James T.Gardiner Papers
(CD 7027), Box 2, no. 257.

40. Messages from the Governors, VII, 986-89.

41. "Report of the Special Committee
to Investigate Matters Connected with the State Surveys," New
York State, Assembly
Documents, 108th Session, (1885), vol. 7, no. 137.

42. The New York Times, May 9, 1885, 4; “Transactions
of the Society for the Year 1886,” Journal of the
American Geographical Society of New York 18 (1886), lxi-lxii.

43. Stories from the Brooklyn Eagle and several other newspapers
opposed to the survey are included in the Gardiner scrapbook
at New York State library.

44. Science, March 13, 1885, 217.

45. The State of New York. Sheet No. 1, Eastern and Central
New York (Albany, N.Y.: Charles Van Benthuysen & Sons,
1879). Four editions of this map appeared between 1879 and
1881.

46. New York State Survey, Special Report of the New York
State Survey on the Preservation of the Scenery of Niagara
Falls: and Fourth Annual Report on the Triangulation of the
State for the Year 1879 (Albany, N.Y.: C. Van Benthuysen & Sons,
1880).

47. James T. Gardiner, Map showing Recession of Niagara
Falls in 33 years between 1842 and 1875 ([ Albany, N.Y.?]:
[New York State Survey?], [1875?]). This map was accompanied
by a reprint of the Trigonometrical Survey of the Falls
of Niagara Executed for the Geological Report of the Fourth
District in 1842 (New York: J. Bien, 1875).

48. A good summary of the political maneuvering surrounding
the protection of Niagara Falls is J.B. Harrison, “The
Movement for the Redemption of Niagara,” New Princeton
Review 2 (March, 1886): 233- (13 pp.), http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb (American
Periodical Series); general background information is in William
Irwin, The New Niagara: Tourism, Technology, and the Landscape
of Niagara Falls, 1776-1917 (University Park: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1996), 63-95.

49. The text of Gardiner’s letter of resignation was
published in The New-York Daily Tribune (Friday, June
19, 1885), and in several other newspapers. These articles
can be found in the Gardiner scrapbook at New York State Library.

50. Ibid.

51. This article is identified in the Gardiner scrapbook as
being from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 19, 1885.
However, I could not find this particular article in Brooklyn Daily
Eagle Online, 1841-1902 (http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/),
although similar remarks were published in that newspaper on
August 7, 1885.

52. The New York Times, Sept. 11, 1912, 11.

53. New York (State). State Survey, The Final Results
of the Triangulation of the New York State Survey, Together
with a Description of the Methods Employed. Also, the Eleventh
Annual report of the Commissioners of the State Survey, Transmitted
to the Legislature, March 22, 1887 (Albany, N.Y., Weed,
Parsons, and Company, 1887).

54. Final Results, 8-10.

55. The best source of information about
the Adirondack Survey is Colvin's reports to the legislature,
which have been digitized by the New York State Library, and
can be located by searching its Excelsior catalog. The only
published biography of Colvin is Nina H. Webb, Footsteps
through the Adirondacks: The Verplanck Colvin Story (Utica,
N.Y.: North Country Books, 1996). This unreferenced, but
well researched, biography sheds little light on Colvin as
a surveyor and cartographer. A useful compilation of Colvin’s
writings with introductory essays by Norman J. Valkenburgh
is Paul Schaefer, ed., Adirondack Explorations: Nature
Writings of Verplanck Colvin (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse
University Press, 1997). Colvin’s role in the campaign
to save the Adirondacks is placed in context by Philip G.
Terrie, Contested Terrain: A New History of Nature and
People in the Adirondacks (Syracuse, N.Y.: The Adirondack
Museum and Syracuse University Press, 1997); Useful information
on Colvin’s maps and their influence can be found in
Boucier, History in the Mapping, 39-44, and in Norman
J. Van Valkenburgh’s introductory chapters to Percy
Reese Morgan, On the Adirondack Survey with Verplanck
Colvin: the Diaries of Percy Reese Morgan (Fleischmanns,
N.Y.: Purple Mountain Press, 1991). Colvin's fans have organized
themselves into a "Colvin Crew," which holds periodic
meetings and hikes to follow Colvin's footsteps in the Adirondacks.

56. Laws of New York State, 95th
Session, Chap. 733 (May 15, 1872).

57. Laws of New York State, 106th
Session, Chap. 499 (June 2, 1883).

58. Interview with John Keating, Bureau Chief, Bureau of Real
Property, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
(July 31, 2008).

59. Messages from the Governors, VIII, 552.

60. Gardner to Powell, December 19, 1883, quoted by Thomas
G. Manning, Government in Science: The U.S. Geological
Survey, 1867-1894 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press,
1967), 127.

61. Henry Gannett, Journal of the American Geographical
Society of New York 27:1 (1895), 23.

62. The New York Times, Feb.26, 1885, 4.

63. "Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Matters
Connected with the State Surveys," New York State, Assembly
Documents , 108th Sess. (1885), vol. 7, no. 137, 6-7.

64. Ibid., 8.

65. See Verplanck Colvin, “Seventh Annual Report on
the Progress of the Topographic Survey of the Adirondack Region
of New York for the Year 1879,” New York State, Assembly
Documents, 103rd Sess. (1881), vol. 3, no. 61, 13-18.
This report includes excerpts from Colvin’s unpublished
reports for the years 1874-1877.

66. “Report on the Progress of the Adirondack State
Land Survey to the Year 1886, with an Historical Sketch of
the Work and Table of Elevations,” New York State, Assembly
Documents, 109th Sess. (1886), vol. 7, no. 80.

67. Forest and Stream 28:16
(May 12, 1887), 351.

68. Verplanck Colvin, Adirondack and State Land Surveys,
1887: The Legislature and the Governor (Albany, N.Y.:
n.p., 1887)

69. Manning, Government in Science, 100.

70. The New York Times, Oct. 18, 1891, 1. The Times opposed
Colvin’s candidacy because he was not a “practical
engineer.”

71. Messages from the Governors, IX, 424-25.

72. These papers are in the Bureau of Real
Property of the New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation. Some 337 of the maps in this collection have
been microfiched, and are available at the New York State Archives
and elsewhere. See also Webb, Footsteps through the Adirondacks,
123-46. A selection of these maps have been made available
on the World Wide Web by the New York State Archives at: http://iarchives.nysed.gov/PubImageWeb/listCollections.jsp?id=56458

73. The New York Times, Nov. 9, 1901, 2.

74. These maps are listed in Francis B. Rosevear and Barbara
McMartin, Colvin in the Adirondacks: a Chronology and Index:
Research Source of Colvin's Published and Unpublished Works (Utica,
N.Y.: North Country Books, 1992), 117-127.

75. Colvin, Seventh Annual Report, 13-18.

76. Ely was a Rochester physician, whose maps of the Adirondacks
were published by G.W. and C.B. Colton between 1867 and 1876.
Based in Glens Falls, Stoddard was an accomplished photographer
and writer, as well as a cartographer. Information about Stoddard
and a low-resolution image of one of his maps is available
at: http://www.chapmanmuseum.org/seneca_ray_stoddard.htm.
He published various editions of his map of the Adirondacks
between 1874 and 1914. No high resolution images of Ely’s
or Stoddard’s maps are available online, but they are
widely available in New York State libraries.

79. The earliest state maps of the Adirondack’s were
published by the Forest Commission, but the cartographers were
hired by Colvin’s rivals in the office of the State Engineer
and Surveyor. A number of Colvin’s maps are cited in
the useful “Catalogue of Field-notes, Surveys, and Landpapers
of Patents, Grants, and Tracts Situate within the Counties
Embracing the Forest Preserve of the State of New York,” (compiled
by J.B. Koetteritz), which is included as an appendix to the
Forest Commission’s Annual Report for 1893,
309-499. Available online from Google Books at: http://books.google.com/books?id=f34AAAAAYAAJ.

80. New York (State). State Engineer and Surveyor, Map
of the Adirondack Wilderness and Adjoining Territory ([
Albany, NY?: Forest Commission], 1884); 20 leaves, each 67
x 70 cm. Two copies of this map are in the Manuscripts Division
of the New York State Library. The only other cataloged copy
is at the University of Chicago. One of the copies at the
State Library has extensive handwritten updates and corrections.
An uncataloged reduced-scale version of this map is in the
first Annual Report of the Forest Commission at
the State Library.

82. New York (State). Forest Commission, Map
of the Great Forest of Northern New York: Showing Boundaries
(in Red) of the Forest Area, and Boundaries (in Blue) of
the Proposed Adirondack Park ([ Albany, N.Y.]: Forest
Commission, 1890). The first “blue line” map
was in Colvin’s
first Annual Report (1873).

83. New York (State). Forest Commission, Map of the Adirondack
Forest and Adjoining Territory Compiled from the Official
Maps and Field Notes on File in the State Departments in
Albany ([Albany, N.Y.]: Forest Commission, 1893).

84. New York (State). Adirondack Park Agency, Adirondack Park,
Land Use and Development Plan Map and State Land Map (Ray
Brook, N.Y.: The Agency, 2003). “Facsimile” [digital
copy] available online at: http://www.apa.state.ny.us/gis/FacsimileMap.html).

85. In addition to the original maps, 300 of them have been
microfiched and are available at the New York State Archives.
A few samples are available online from the State Archives
Digital Collectons at: http://www.archives.nysed.gov/d/index.shtml.

86. For the history of the U.S. Lake survey, see Arthur M.
Woodford, Charting the Inland Seas: A History of the U.S.
Lake Survey (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994);
Cyrus B. Comstock, Report upon the Primary Triangulation
of the United States Lake Survey. Professional Papers
of the Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army, No. 24 (Washington D.C.:
GPO, 1882).

87. Woodford, Charting the Inland Seas,
55. Several early Lake Survey charts of the northern boundary
waters of New York area can be found by searching the NOAA
historical maps Web site at http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/csdl/ctp/abstract.htm.
This collection is not complete, and additional charts can
be located by using OCLC.

104. Henry Gannett, A Manual of Topographic Methods.
Monographs of the United States Geological Survey, v.22 (Washington
D.C.: GPO, 1893).

105. For a detailed discussion of the characteristics
of USGS maps with a brief historical overview, see Morris M.
Thompson, Maps
for America: Cartographic Products of the U.S. Geological Survey
and Others (3rd ed.; Washington D.C.: GPO, 1987).

106. Gannett, “The Mapping of New York State,” 28.

107. Ibid., 29.

108. Manning, Government in Science, 102-04, provides
additional information on inaccuracies in early topographic
maps.

110. A comprehensive list of early geological maps of
New York State is contained in Henry Leighton, “One Hundred
Years of New York State Geological Maps, 1809-1909,” New
York State Museum Bulletin 133 (1909), 121-155. This publication
is available online from the New York State Library at: http://nysl.nysed.gov/uhtbin/cgisirsi/twyzwjwApw/NYSL/263390030/503/68511.

112. A good starting point for research on the history of
Geological Mapping in New York is the unofficial gateway to
the New York State Geological Survey at: http://nygeosurvey.geology-forum.com/.

113. New York State Geological Survey, Preliminary
Geologic Map of New York: Exhibiting the Structure of the
State So Far As Known ([Washington, D.C.?]:
United States Geological Survey, 1894). A rare preliminary
edition of this map was published in 1892.

114. Frederick J.H. Merrill, Geologic Map of New York:
Exhibiting the Structure of the State So Far As Known ([
Albany, N.Y].: New York State Museum, 1901).

116. A brief overview of the early history of soil mapping
in New York State is contained in: New York (State). Division
of State Planning. A Mapping Program for New York State.
Bulletin No. 37 (1938), 33-44.

118. For background on the public health movement, see: Jon
A. Peterson, “The Impact of Sanitary
Reform upon American Urban Planning, 1840-1890,” Journal
of Social History 13:1 (Autumn, 1979), 83-103. A good
deal of information about public health in New York City is
contained in Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham:
A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1999). For a detailed account, consult John Duffy, A
History of Public Health in New York City (2 v.; New York:
Sage, 1974), and his more recent overview, The Sanitarians:
A History of American Public Health (Urbana: University
of Illinois Press, 1990).

120. Viele drew up a detailed manuscript "Plan
of Drainage for the Grounds of the Central Park" in 1855.
It is reproduced and the story of Viele's involvement in the
creation of the park is described in Cohen and Augustyn, Manhattan
in Maps,
130-31. In 1856, Viele published two maps of the park on one
sheet with the titles Map of the Lands Included in the
Central Park, from a Topographical Survey, June 17th, 1856;
[Also:] Plan for the Improvement of the Central Park, Adopted
by the Commissioners, June 3rd, 1856 (New York: Egbert
L. Viele, 1856). This map is available on the World Wide Web
from New York Public Library at: http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?1697276.

121.Egbert L. Viele, Topographical
Map of the City of New York: Showing Original Water Courses
and Made Land (N[ew]
Y[ork] : Ferd. Mayer & Co., c1865), available on the World
Wide Web from the Library of Congress at: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3804n.ct002003.
Cohen and Augustyn reproduce this map and say something about
its background and importance in Manhattan
in Maps, 136-39. A variant edition of this map bearing the
title: Sanitary & Topographical
Map of the City and Island of New York ( New York: Ferd.
Mayer & Co. Lithographers, 1865) was published in the Report
of the Council of Hygiene. A copy of this version is available
on the World Wide Web from the David Rumsey Collection at: http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/s/22jsyt.

124. A fairly complete and searchable
index to the maps in the New York State Senate and Assembly
Documents is available at the
Stony Brook University Library. For information about
the current status of the online version of this inventory,
see: http://sunysb.libguides.com/content.php?pid=134971&sid=1233163.

125. Weed, Parsons & Co., Map of
the State of New York, 1865: Showing the Population of Towns & Wards
(Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons & Co.).

126.
. For an overview of statistical mapping by the federal government , see Schulten, Mapping the Nation, 119-195. Friss, "Statistical Cartography in the United States
Prior to 1870," 138, comments on the "electric suddenness"
with which statistical cartography came of age in the Census
Bureau after the 1870 census.

127. United States. Census Office. Statistical
Atlas of the United States Based on the Results of the Ninth
Census 1870 with Contributions from Many Eminent Men of Science
and Several Departments of the Government, Comp. under the
Authority of Congress by Francis A. Walker, M. A., Superintendent
of the Ninth Census (New York: J. Bien, 1874).
Available on the World Wide Web from the David Rumsey Collection
(http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/s/335r7j)
and the Library of Congress at:
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/ g3701gm. gct00008.

129. Lawrence Viellier, "Map showing over-crowding of
buildings on lots and consequent lack of light and air space
also the prevalence of tuberculosis, typhoid fever, scarlet
fever and diphtheria in the tenement house district bounded
by 11th Avenue, 6th Avenue, West 17th Street, West 14th Street." (manuscript
map, 1899). This is one of a group of maps apparently prepared
for a large exhibition held by the Tenement House Committee
in 1899: see see article by Lawrence Viellier, "The
Tenement-House Exhibit of 1899" originally published in Charities
Review 10 (1900-1901), 19-25, and published on the
World Wide Web by William L. Crozier for the Lower Manhattan
Project in 19993 at: http://www.tenant.net/Community/Les/veiller1.html.
Some 89 maps in two series from this exhibit have
been cataloged by the New York Historical Society.

130. Frederick E. Pierce, The Tenement
House Committee Maps: Map of City of New York Showing Densities
of Population in the Several Sanitary Districts, June 1,
1894 -- No.
2. Map of City of New York Showing the Distribution of
Principal Nationalities by Sanitary Districts (s.l.:
Harper & Brothers, 1894)), http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/
g3804n. ct001463r. Two smaller population maps are also included
in this article, which appears to be taken from Harper's
Weekly.